Lagardere Sports has been hired to operate the CareerBuilder Challenge, and PGA Tour officials said that they "believe the changes will solidify the future of the event" in La Quinta, Calif., according to a front-page piece by Larry Bohannan of the Palm Springs DESERT SUN. Desert Classic Charities President John Foster said that he "signed the last of the documents" yesterday to hire Lagardere to "run the event with DCC’s input." Lagardere, which operates the PGA Tour’s Safeway Open in Napa and has "run dozens of Web.com Tour events, was involved" with the '17 CareerBuilder as a consultant. Lagardere’s Jeff Sanders "takes over" as Exec Dir. For "all the good things about" the tourney, Foster and Tour officials "acknowledge the event has struggled in recent years." It attracted a "solid" field over the "last several years, but most of the elite players in the game instead play in a European Tour event that same weekend in Abu Dhabi." The tournament’s charity donations also have "fallen in the last several years." Some of the changes were "sparked by the resignation" this summer of former Exec Dir Nick Raffaele, who held the position for "just over a year." Both the PGA Tour and DCC said that they were "surprised by Raffaele’s departure." But the move did "open up the opportunity for Lagardere to elevate its relationship with the tournament from consultant to operator." Sanders said that what Lagardere has "done at the Safeway event could be a blueprint for some changes at the CareerBuilder." Sanders: "I believe the tournament can come back. Our model, the golf festival model, will do very, very well in that community" (Palm Springs DESERT SUN, 8/30).
